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The googlecompute plugin can be used with HashiCorp Packer to create custom images on GCE.

  • Official

Updated 4 months ago

Google Cloud Platform

Type: googlecompute Artifact BuilderId: packer.googlecompute

The googlecompute Packer builder is able to create images for use with Google Compute Engine (GCE) based on existing images.

It is possible to build images from scratch, but not with the googlecompute Packer builder. The process is recommended only for advanced users, please see Building GCE Images from Scratch and the Google Compute Import Post-Processor for more information.

Configuration Reference

Configuration options are organized below into two categories: required and optional. Within each category, the available options are alphabetized and described.

In addition to the options listed here, a communicator can be configured for this builder.

Required:

  • project_id (string) - The project ID that will be used to launch instances and store images.

  • source_image (string) - The source image to use to create the new image from. You can also specify source_image_family instead. If both source_image and source_image_family are specified, source_image takes precedence. Example: "debian-8-jessie-v20161027"

  • source_image_family (string) - The source image family to use to create the new image from. The image family always returns its latest image that is not deprecated. Example: "debian-8".

  • zone (string) - The zone in which to launch the instance used to create the image. Example: "us-central1-a"

Optional:

  • accelerator_type (string) - Full or partial URL of the guest accelerator type. GPU accelerators can only be used with "on_host_maintenance": "TERMINATE" option set. Example: "projects/project_id/zones/europe-west1-b/acceleratorTypes/nvidia-tesla-k80"

  • accelerator_count (int64) - Number of guest accelerator cards to add to the launched instance.

  • address (string) - The name of a pre-allocated static external IP address. Note, must be the name and not the actual IP address.

  • disable_default_service_account (bool) - If true, the default service account will not be used if service_account_email is not specified. Set this value to true and omit service_account_email to provision a VM with no service account.

  • disk_name (string) - The name of the disk, if unset the instance name will be used.

  • disk_size (int64) - The size of the disk in GB. This defaults to 20, which is 20GB.

  • disk_type (string) - Type of disk used to back your instance, like pd-ssd or pd-standard. Defaults to pd-standard.

  • disk_encryption_key (*common.CustomerEncryptionKey) - Disk encryption key to apply to the created boot disk. Possible values:

    • kmsKeyName - The name of the encryption key that is stored in Google Cloud KMS.
    • RawKey: - A 256-bit customer-supplied encryption key, encodes in RFC 4648 base64.

    examples:

    {
   "kmsKeyName": "projects/${project}/locations/${region}/keyRings/computeEngine/cryptoKeys/computeEngine/cryptoKeyVersions/4"
}

     disk_encryption_key {
   kmsKeyName = "projects/${var.project}/locations/${var.region}/keyRings/computeEngine/cryptoKeys/computeEngine/cryptoKeyVersions/4"
 }

  • enable_nested_virtualization (bool) - Create a instance with enabling nested virtualization.

  • enable_secure_boot (bool) - Create a Shielded VM image with Secure Boot enabled. It helps ensure that the system only runs authentic software by verifying the digital signature of all boot components, and halting the boot process if signature verification fails. Details

  • enable_vtpm (bool) - Create a Shielded VM image with virtual trusted platform module Measured Boot enabled. A vTPM is a virtualized trusted platform module, which is a specialized computer chip you can use to protect objects, like keys and certificates, that you use to authenticate access to your system. Details

  • enable_integrity_monitoring (bool) - Integrity monitoring helps you understand and make decisions about the state of your VM instances. Note: integrity monitoring relies on having vTPM enabled. Details

  • disk_attachment ([]common.BlockDevice) - Extra disks to attach to the instance that will build the final image.

    You may reference an existing external persistent disk, or you can configure a set of disks to be created before the instance is created, and will be deleted upon build completion.

    Scratch (ephemeral) SSDs are always created at launch, and deleted when the instance is torn-down.

    Note: local SSDs are not supported on all machine types, refer to the docs for more information on that.

    Refer to the Extra Disk Attachments section for more information on this configuration type.

  • skip_create_image (bool) - Skip creating the image. Useful for setting to true during a build test stage. Defaults to false.

  • image_name (string) - The unique name of the resulting image. Defaults to packer-{{timestamp}}.

  • image_description (string) - The description of the resulting image.

  • image_encryption_key (*common.CustomerEncryptionKey) - Image encryption key to apply to the created image. Possible values:

    • kmsKeyName - The name of the encryption key that is stored in Google Cloud KMS.
    • RawKey: - A 256-bit customer-supplied encryption key, encodes in RFC 4648 base64.

    examples:

    {
   "kmsKeyName": "projects/${project}/locations/${region}/keyRings/computeEngine/cryptoKeys/computeEngine/cryptoKeyVersions/4"
}

     image_encryption_key {
   kmsKeyName = "projects/${var.project}/locations/${var.region}/keyRings/computeEngine/cryptoKeys/computeEngine/cryptoKeyVersions/4"
 }

  • image_family (string) - The name of the image family to which the resulting image belongs. You can create disks by specifying an image family instead of a specific image name. The image family always returns its latest image that is not deprecated.

  • image_labels (map[string]string) - Key/value pair labels to apply to the created image.

  • image_licenses ([]string) - Licenses to apply to the created image.

  • image_guest_os_features ([]string) - Guest OS features to apply to the created image.

  • image_project_id (string) - The project ID to push the build image into. Defaults to project_id.

  • image_storage_locations ([]string) - Storage location, either regional or multi-regional, where snapshot content is to be stored and only accepts 1 value. Always defaults to a nearby regional or multi-regional location.

    multi-regional example:

    {
   "image_storage_locations": ["us"]
}

    regional example:

    {
   "image_storage_locations": ["us-east1"]
}

  • instance_name (string) - A name to give the launched instance. Beware that this must be unique. Defaults to packer-{{uuid}}.

  • labels (map[string]string) - Key/value pair labels to apply to the launched instance.

  • machine_type (string) - The machine type. Defaults to "e2-standard-2".

  • metadata (map[string]string) - Metadata applied to the launched instance. All metadata configuration values are expected to be of type string. Google metadata options that take a value of TRUE or FALSE should be set as a string (i.e "TRUE" "FALSE" or "true" "false").

  • metadata_files (map[string]string) - Metadata applied to the launched instance. Values are files.

  • min_cpu_platform (string) - A Minimum CPU Platform for VM Instance. Availability and default CPU platforms vary across zones, based on the hardware available in each GCP zone. Details

  • network (string) - The Google Compute network id or URL to use for the launched instance. Defaults to "default". If the value is not a URL, it will be interpolated to projects/((network_project_id))/global/networks/((network)). This value is not required if a subnet is specified.

  • network_project_id (string) - The project ID for the network and subnetwork to use for launched instance. Defaults to project_id.

  • omit_external_ip (bool) - If true, the instance will not have an external IP. use_internal_ip must be true if this property is true.

  • on_host_maintenance (string) - Sets Host Maintenance Option. Valid choices are MIGRATE and TERMINATE. Please see GCE Instance Scheduling Options, as not all machine_types support MIGRATE (i.e. machines with GPUs). If preemptible is true this can only be TERMINATE. If preemptible is false, it defaults to MIGRATE

  • preemptible (bool) - If true, launch a preemptible instance.

  • node_affinity ([]common.NodeAffinity) - Sets a node affinity label for the launched instance (eg. for sole tenancy). Please see Provisioning VMs on sole-tenant nodes for more information.

      key = "workload"
  operator = "IN"
  values = ["packer"]

  • state_timeout (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The time to wait for instance state changes. Defaults to "5m".

  • region (string) - The region in which to launch the instance. Defaults to the region hosting the specified zone.

  • scopes ([]string) - The service account scopes for launched instance. Defaults to:

    [
  "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email",
  "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/compute",
  "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.full_control"
]

  • service_account_email (string) - The service account to be used for launched instance. Defaults to the project's default service account unless disable_default_service_account is true.

  • source_image_project_id ([]string) - A list of project IDs to search for the source image. Packer will search the first project ID in the list first, and fall back to the next in the list, until it finds the source image.

  • startup_script_file (string) - The path to a startup script to run on the launched instance from which the image will be made. When set, the contents of the startup script file will be added to the instance metadata under the "startup_script" metadata property. See Providing startup script contents directly for more details.

    When using startup_script_file the following rules apply:

    • The contents of the script file will overwrite the value of the "startup_script" metadata property at runtime.
    • The contents of the script file will be wrapped in Packer's startup script wrapper, unless wrap_startup_script is disabled. See wrap_startup_script for more details.
    • Not supported by Windows instances. See Startup Scripts for Windows for more details.

  • windows_password_timeout (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The time to wait for windows password to be retrieved. Defaults to "3m".

  • wrap_startup_script (boolean) - For backwards compatibility this option defaults to "true" in the future it will default to "false". If "true", the contents of startup_script_file or "startup_script" in the instance metadata is wrapped in a Packer specific script that tracks the execution and completion of the provided startup script. The wrapper ensures that the builder will not continue until the startup script has been executed.

    • The use of the wrapped script file requires that the user or service account running the build has the compute.instance.Metadata role.

  • subnetwork (string) - The Google Compute subnetwork id or URL to use for the launched instance. Only required if the network has been created with custom subnetting. Note, the region of the subnetwork must match the region or zone in which the VM is launched. If the value is not a URL, it will be interpolated to projects/((network_project_id))/regions/((region))/subnetworks/((subnetwork))

  • tags ([]string) - Assign network tags to apply firewall rules to VM instance.

  • use_internal_ip (bool) - If true, use the instance's internal IP instead of its external IP during building.

  • use_os_login (bool) - If true, OSLogin will be used to manage SSH access to the compute instance by dynamically importing a temporary SSH key to the Google account's login profile, and setting the enable-oslogin to TRUE in the instance metadata. Optionally, use_os_login can be used with an existing ssh_username and ssh_private_key_file if a SSH key has already been added to the Google account's login profile - See Adding SSH Keys.

    SSH keys can be added to an individual user account

    $ gcloud compute os-login ssh-keys add --key-file=/home/user/.ssh/my-key.pub

$ gcloud compute os-login describe-profile
PosixAccounts:
- accountId: <project-id>
 gid: '34567890754'
 homeDirectory: /home/user_example_com
 ...
 primary: true
 uid: '2504818925'
 username: /home/user_example_com
sshPublicKeys:
 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000a:
   fingerprint: 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000a

    Or SSH keys can be added to an associated service account

    $ gcloud auth activate-service-account --key-file=<path to service account credentials file (e.g account.json)>
$ gcloud compute os-login ssh-keys add --key-file=/home/user/.ssh/my-key.pub

$ gcloud compute os-login describe-profile
PosixAccounts:
- accountId: <project-id>
 gid: '34567890754'
 homeDirectory: /home/sa_000000000000000000000
 ...
 primary: true
 uid: '2504818925'
 username: sa_000000000000000000000
sshPublicKeys:
 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000a:
   fingerprint: 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000a

  • wait_to_add_ssh_keys (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The time to wait between the creation of the instance used to create the image, and the addition of SSH configuration, including SSH keys, to that instance. The delay is intended to protect packer from anything in the instance boot sequence that has potential to disrupt the creation of SSH configuration (e.g. SSH user creation, SSH key creation) on the instance. Note: All other instance metadata, including startup scripts, are still added to the instance during it's creation. Example value: 5m.

  • use_iap (bool) - Whether to use an IAP proxy. Prerequisites and limitations for using IAP:

    • You must manually enable the IAP API in the Google Cloud console.
    • You must have the gcloud sdk installed on the computer running Packer.
    • If you use a service account, you must add it to project level IAP permissions in https://console.cloud.google.com/security/iap. To do so, click "project" > "SSH and TCP resources" > "All Tunnel Resources" > "Add Member". Then add your service account and choose the role "IAP-secured Tunnel User" and add any conditions you may care about.

  • iap_localhost_port (int) - Which port to connect the local end of the IAM localhost proxy to. If left blank, Packer will choose a port for you from available ports.

  • iap_hashbang (string) - What "hashbang" to use to invoke script that sets up gcloud. Default: "/bin/sh"

  • iap_ext (string) - What file extension to use for script that sets up gcloud. Default: ".sh"

  • iap_tunnel_launch_wait (int) - How long to wait, in seconds, before assuming a tunnel launch was successful. Defaults to 30 seconds for SSH or 40 seconds for WinRM.

Startup Scripts

Startup scripts can be a powerful tool for configuring the instance from which the image is made. The builder will wait for a startup script to terminate. A startup script can be provided via the startup_script_file or startup-script instance creation metadata field. Therefore, the build time will vary depending on the duration of the startup script. If startup_script_file is set, the startup-script metadata field will be overwritten. In other words, startup_script_file takes precedence.

The builder does check for a pass/fail/error signal from the startup script by tracking the startup-script-status metadata. Packer will check if this key is set to done and if it not set to done before the timeout, Packer will fail the build.

Windows

A Windows startup script can only be provided as a metadata field option. The builder will not wait for a Windows startup script to terminate. You have to ensure that it finishes before the instance shuts down. For a list of supported startup script keys refer to Using startup scripts on Windows

metadata = {
  sysprep-specialize-script-cmd = "..."
}

Logging

Startup script logs can be copied to a Google Cloud Storage (GCS) location specified via the startup-script-log-dest instance creation metadata field. The GCS location must be writeable by the service account of the instance that Packer created.

Communicator Configuration

Optional:

  • communicator (string) - Packer currently supports three kinds of communicators:

    • none - No communicator will be used. If this is set, most provisioners also can't be used.

    • ssh - An SSH connection will be established to the machine. This is usually the default.

    • winrm - A WinRM connection will be established.

    In addition to the above, some builders have custom communicators they can use. For example, the Docker builder has a "docker" communicator that uses docker exec and docker cp to execute scripts and copy files.

  • pause_before_connecting (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - We recommend that you enable SSH or WinRM as the very last step in your guest's bootstrap script, but sometimes you may have a race condition where you need Packer to wait before attempting to connect to your guest.

    If you end up in this situation, you can use the template option pause_before_connecting. By default, there is no pause. For example if you set pause_before_connecting to 10m Packer will check whether it can connect, as normal. But once a connection attempt is successful, it will disconnect and then wait 10 minutes before connecting to the guest and beginning provisioning.

  • ssh_host (string) - The address to SSH to. This usually is automatically configured by the builder.

  • ssh_port (int) - The port to connect to SSH. This defaults to 22.

  • ssh_username (string) - The username to connect to SSH with. Required if using SSH.

  • ssh_password (string) - A plaintext password to use to authenticate with SSH.

  • ssh_ciphers ([]string) - This overrides the value of ciphers supported by default by Golang. The default value is [ "aes128-gcm@openssh.com", "chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com", "aes128-ctr", "aes192-ctr", "aes256-ctr", ]

    Valid options for ciphers include: "aes128-ctr", "aes192-ctr", "aes256-ctr", "aes128-gcm@openssh.com", "chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com", "arcfour256", "arcfour128", "arcfour", "aes128-cbc", "3des-cbc",

  • ssh_clear_authorized_keys (bool) - If true, Packer will attempt to remove its temporary key from ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and /root/.ssh/authorized_keys. This is a mostly cosmetic option, since Packer will delete the temporary private key from the host system regardless of whether this is set to true (unless the user has set the -debug flag). Defaults to "false"; currently only works on guests with sed installed.

  • ssh_key_exchange_algorithms ([]string) - If set, Packer will override the value of key exchange (kex) algorithms supported by default by Golang. Acceptable values include: "curve25519-sha256@libssh.org", "ecdh-sha2-nistp256", "ecdh-sha2-nistp384", "ecdh-sha2-nistp521", "diffie-hellman-group14-sha1", and "diffie-hellman-group1-sha1".

  • ssh_certificate_file (string) - Path to user certificate used to authenticate with SSH. The ~ can be used in path and will be expanded to the home directory of current user.

  • ssh_pty (bool) - If true, a PTY will be requested for the SSH connection. This defaults to false.

  • ssh_timeout (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The time to wait for SSH to become available. Packer uses this to determine when the machine has booted so this is usually quite long. Example value: 10m. This defaults to 5m, unless ssh_handshake_attempts is set.

  • ssh_disable_agent_forwarding (bool) - If true, SSH agent forwarding will be disabled. Defaults to false.

  • ssh_handshake_attempts (int) - The number of handshakes to attempt with SSH once it can connect. This defaults to 10, unless a ssh_timeout is set.

  • ssh_bastion_host (string) - A bastion host to use for the actual SSH connection.

  • ssh_bastion_port (int) - The port of the bastion host. Defaults to 22.

  • ssh_bastion_agent_auth (bool) - If true, the local SSH agent will be used to authenticate with the bastion host. Defaults to false.

  • ssh_bastion_username (string) - The username to connect to the bastion host.

  • ssh_bastion_password (string) - The password to use to authenticate with the bastion host.

  • ssh_bastion_interactive (bool) - If true, the keyboard-interactive used to authenticate with bastion host.

  • ssh_bastion_private_key_file (string) - Path to a PEM encoded private key file to use to authenticate with the bastion host. The ~ can be used in path and will be expanded to the home directory of current user.

  • ssh_bastion_certificate_file (string) - Path to user certificate used to authenticate with bastion host. The ~ can be used in path and will be expanded to the home directory of current user.

  • ssh_file_transfer_method (string) - scp or sftp - How to transfer files, Secure copy (default) or SSH File Transfer Protocol.

    NOTE: Guests using Windows with Win32-OpenSSH v9.1.0.0p1-Beta, scp (the default protocol for copying data) returns a a non-zero error code since the MOTW cannot be set, which cause any file transfer to fail. As a workaround you can override the transfer protocol with SFTP instead ssh_file_transfer_protocol = "sftp".

  • ssh_proxy_host (string) - A SOCKS proxy host to use for SSH connection

  • ssh_proxy_port (int) - A port of the SOCKS proxy. Defaults to 1080.

  • ssh_proxy_username (string) - The optional username to authenticate with the proxy server.

  • ssh_proxy_password (string) - The optional password to use to authenticate with the proxy server.

  • ssh_keep_alive_interval (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - How often to send "keep alive" messages to the server. Set to a negative value (-1s) to disable. Example value: 10s. Defaults to 5s.

  • ssh_read_write_timeout (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The amount of time to wait for a remote command to end. This might be useful if, for example, packer hangs on a connection after a reboot. Example: 5m. Disabled by default.

  • ssh_remote_tunnels ([]string) -

  • ssh_local_tunnels ([]string) -

  • ssh_private_key_file (string) - Path to a PEM encoded private key file to use to authenticate with SSH. The ~ can be used in path and will be expanded to the home directory of current user.

Temporary SSH keypair

When no ssh credentials are specified, Packer will generate a temporary SSH keypair for the instance. You can change the algorithm type and bits settings.

Optional:

  • temporary_key_pair_type (string) - dsa | ecdsa | ed25519 | rsa ( the default )

    Specifies the type of key to create. The possible values are 'dsa', 'ecdsa', 'ed25519', or 'rsa'.

    NOTE: DSA is deprecated and no longer recognized as secure, please consider other alternatives like RSA or ED25519.

  • temporary_key_pair_bits (int) - Specifies the number of bits in the key to create. For RSA keys, the minimum size is 1024 bits and the default is 4096 bits. Generally, 3072 bits is considered sufficient. DSA keys must be exactly 1024 bits as specified by FIPS 186-2. For ECDSA keys, bits determines the key length by selecting from one of three elliptic curve sizes: 256, 384 or 521 bits. Attempting to use bit lengths other than these three values for ECDSA keys will fail. Ed25519 keys have a fixed length and bits will be ignored.

    NOTE: DSA is deprecated and no longer recognized as secure as specified by FIPS 186-5, please consider other alternatives like RSA or ED25519.

Gotchas

CentOS and recent Debian images have root ssh access disabled by default. Set ssh_username to any user, which will be created by packer with sudo access.

The machine type must have a scratch disk, which means you can't use an f1-micro or g1-small to build images.

Extra disk attachments

BlockDevice is a block device attachement/creation to an instance when building an image.

These can be defined using the disk_attachment block in the configuration.

Note that this is an array, and therefore in HCL2 can be defined as multiple blocks, each one corresponding to a disk that will be attached to the instance you are booting.

Example:

source "googlecompute" "example" {
  # Add whichever is necessary to build the image

  disk_attachment {
    volume_type     = "scratch"
    volume_size     = 375
  }

  disk_attachment {
    volume_type     = "pd-standard"
    volume_size     = 25
    interface_type  = "SCSI"
  }
}

Required:

  • volume_size (int) - Size of the volume to request, in gigabytes.

    The size specified must be in range of the sizes for the chosen volume type.

  • volume_type (BlockDeviceType) - The volume type is the type of storage to reserve and attach to the instance being provisioned.

    The following values are supported by this builder:

    • scratch: local SSD data, always 375 GiB (default)
    • pd_standard: persistent, HDD-backed disk
    • pd_balanced: persistent, SSD-backed disk
    • pd_ssd: persistent, SSD-backed disk, with extra performance guarantees
    • pd_extreme: persistent, fastest SSD-backed disk, with custom IOPS

    For details on the different types, refer to: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/disks#disk-types

Optional:

  • attachment_mode (string) - How to attach the volume to the instance

    Can be either READ_ONLY or READ_WRITE (default).

  • device_name (string) - The device name as exposed to the OS in the /dev/disk/by-id/google-* directory

    If unspecified, the disk will have a default name in the form persistent-disk-x with 'x' being a number assigned by GCE

    This field only applies to persistent disks, local SSDs will always be exposed as /dev/disk/by-id/google-local-nvme-ssd-x.

  • disk_encryption_key (CustomerEncryptionKey) - Disk encryption key to apply to the requested disk.

    Possible values:

    • kmsKeyName - The name of the encryption key that is stored in Google Cloud KMS.
    • RawKey: - A 256-bit customer-supplied encryption key, encodes in RFC 4648 base64.

  • disk_name (string) - Name of the disk to create. This only applies to non-scratch disks. If the disk is persistent, and not specified, Packer will generate a unique name for the disk.

    The name must be 1-63 characters long and comply to the regexp 'a-z?'

  • interface_type (string) - The interface to use for attaching the disk. Can be either NVME or SCSI. Defaults to SCSI.

    The available options depend on the type of disk, SEE: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/disks/persistent-disks#choose_an_interface

  • iops (int) - The requested IOPS for the disk.

    This is only available for pd_extreme disks.

  • keep_device (bool) - Keep the device in the created disks after the instance is terminated. By default, the builder will remove the disks at the end of the build.

    This cannot be used with 'scratch' volumes.

  • replica_zones ([]string) - The list of extra zones to replicate the disk into

    The zone in which the instance is created will automatically be added to the zones in which the disk is replicated.

  • source_volume (string) - The URI of the volume to attach

    If this is specified, it won't be deleted after the instance is shut-down.